I suppose the kindest interpretation of those words is that this consultant does know that advertisers were applying the concept of the Unique Selling Proposition 50 years ago, and therefore he is not claiming it was his concept. But he has developed some variant of the Unique Selling Proposition, which he calls “Unique Selling Positions.” If so, he’s just being careless when he fails to explain all this to us.

The second-kindest interpretation is that he actually thinks he developed and named what the world knows as “Unique Selling Proposition,” and he thinks he named it “Unique Selling Positions.” In this case, he’s being fatuous.

And the third-kindest interpretation is that he is trying to fool us about who developed what. In which case, as much as I regret to think it, he’s being dishonest.

The Takeaway: Like it or not, when we write for publication our readers judge us by our writing. We should always ask for an edit, to prevent us from looking careless, fatuous or dishonest.